Hi, I wanted to go back to Chernaudi's (cool name, by the way - made me smile once I clued in what it was) discussion of hibrid hair and nails. I would have to agree with the halfway threory for the nails' strength - that hibrids, in comparison to humans, would have stronger nails and, maybe, they could scratch a car quite badly. But I am more inclined to think that their hair and nails stop growing after they reach their, so called, maturity level and stop getting old and, potentially, dying... P.S. Chernaudi, if your character chewed on the tires, imagine what a damage that would be... shocking!...

Hi guys I’m sorry for bringing up very old topics on this thread, which have been long forgotten. But I spent the whole day reading thorough all the posts and found that some of them had no proper conclusion, whereas I like being thorough:

The first one was written by Greeneggs (long ago):

Explain to me this:

During Bella's pregnancy the baby manages to attack her lungs.

The baby had to rip apart all these organs to get to the lungs, (not to mention attacking these organs would have caused a lot more damage)

Well, I don’t know how to start this…In my memory of BD I cannot recall that, during birth, the foetus ripped into Bella’s lungs. It wasn’t like that. It was the FOETUS, who could not breathe, because the placenta got detached during Bella’s clumsy manoeuvre of catching the cup with blood, NOT Bella because of the child ripping into her lungs. The situation, in my opinion, had been clearly described: Bella attempts to catch the cup; placenta gets detached; child suffocating, Bella screams ‘get him out’; she gets shifted to another room; Rosalie cuts her belly; Jacob kicks Rosalie away; Edward bites though placenta; Renesme’s out. NOTHING about any lungs been ripped apart. Greeneggs goes into this horrendous description as to what organs would be ripped first before the featus would get to the lungs, and how the stomach acid would melt Bella’s other organs away…If that were the case, I don’t think Bella would have been able to speak and hold Renesme in her arms – she’d be pretty dead by then… Bella’s injuries were from the so called emergency ‘caesarean’ carried out by Edward using his teeth, not from Renesme ripping her insides apart (well, apart from a few broken ribs, bruises on the skin and then the broken spine, which happened right before Renesme was out). And, the blood that came out of Bella’s mouth was not because her lungs were torn: it was the blood she vomited out from when she drank it. Of course there was also blood from her belly being cut, but no stomach acid, etc.

…or am I the only one in thinking this?

Another point a wanted to deliberate, which has been chewed over and over many times on this thread, yet nothing came to sense – why do wolves imprint? Is it to pass on the ‘wolf’ gene and make stronger wolves? I don’t think so. Yeah, Billy and Leah seem to believe that, but that is just THEIR theory. The truth is no one knows why they imprint. People seem to take Leah’s notion as something to go by. But we really don’t know why they imprint, do we? I think SM wrote this in BD because Jacob and Leah were having a dialogue; and that was only Leah’s speculation…

… does anyone have some insight?

The third point – why did vampires need reproduction, when they didn’t need it because they could produce new vampires simply by biting? The function of reproductive organs was therefore redundant. My answer to that is not scientific, but I think that they needed that ‘function’ because they mated for life. It would be pretty darn bland to live forever with someone and not having THAT part of things, wouldn’t it?

…again I’d like to hear what others think.

Last but not the least; I would like to get to the bottom of Renesme’s immunity to vampire venom, i.e. would she be immune or NOT immune to it? I personally believe that she would be immune to it because Edward is her father, in other words the vampire gene would make her immune to it and it wouldn’t kill her. But then, there’s this chromosome issue. She has 24 chromosomes, like Jacob. If he gets bitten, then he definitely dies. So this fact poses a counter argument: if Renesme is similar to Jacob, then the venom would be poisonous to her as well.

…any thoughts?

…one more thing – Pharm4, where are you? I loved reading your explanations, I miss them…and you offered good questions for discussions… please come back!

Rinsgswraith, I love your answers too

Sorry for the double post -note how they were made at different times, so that means it was only me browsing this thread today .....very lonely

Ina EssBe~~I'll respond to a few of these, though they are only my opinion.

Bella's vomiting of blood. I had always thought the same as you, the blood was what she had just drank, not a result of some massive shredding of internal organs.

Imprinting. There is some ambiguity on purpose, I believe, because of Quil's imprinting on a toddler and Jacob's imprinting on a baby, and the thought that imprinting is driven by biological/sex factors might make some readers uncomfortable. I believe, though, that the biological theory makes the most sense. Otherwise, what is the purpose of imprinting? If it is a purely random event, then Jacob could have imprinted on Renee, or Charlie, or even his own father. But there is always a boy/girl pairing. Due to the magical classification of werewolves by SM, I also think there is a mystic element, in that the imprinter also finds their true soulmate. After all, who wants to mate for life with someone who is purely biologically the best specimen for breeding, but where the personalities are constantly in conflict? In other words, some combination of the two.

Can you imagine Jacob imprinting on Charlie? Assuming the imprinter is going to give the imprintee whatever it is they need the most, I guess Jacob would have to take over Bella's old chores...for LIFE! That would truly make shape-shifting a curse, with something like that looming over your head.

"It will take an amazing amount of control,” she mused. “More even than Carlisle has. He may be just strong enough…the only thing he’s not strong enough to do is stay away from her. That’s a lost cause.”

Corona wrote:...what is the purpose of imprinting? If it is a purely random event, then Jacob could have imprinted on Renee, or Charlie, or even his own father. But there is always a boy/girl pairing. Due to the magical classification of werewolves by SM, I also think there is a mystic element, in that the imprinter also finds their true soulmate.

Thank you for your comment, Corona. Your explanation makes sense, though I din't say it was random. It certainly would be rather peculiar (to put it gently), if Jacob imprinted on Charlie, even though he isn't a bad man ---so i guess, Jacob would be pretty stuffed then, if Renesme chose Nahuel or someone else instead, ha?

As for imprinting itself- I don't know how many people heard, but apparantly, it's a learning process during which newly hatched chicks learn to recognise the features of their mother... ...cute

Ina EssBe wrote:Thank you for your comment, Corona. Your explanation makes sense, though I din't say it was random. It certainly would be rather peculiar (to put it gently), if Jacob imprinted on Charlie, even though he isn't a bad man ---so i guess, Jacob would be pretty stuffed then, if Renesme chose Nahuel or someone else instead, ha?

As for imprinting itself- I don't know how many people heard, but apparantly, it's a learning process during which newly hatched chicks learn to recognise the features of their mother... ...cute [/color]

This is some pretty funny stuff!

Actually, I misspoke; Jacob would be perfectly happy imprinting on Charlie, or, back to actual story, Nessie taking up with Nahuel, because as long as they are happy, Jacob would be happy.

Which gets us back to the purpose of imprinting. It would be a pretty sad thing if the imprintee did not eventually bestow romantic affection on the imprinter, so I am going with “recognition of soul-mate”, which should pretty much guarantee that the feeling is mutual (or will be), and that there is no chance that Jacob would have imprinted on anyone other than Nessie.

"It will take an amazing amount of control,” she mused. “More even than Carlisle has. He may be just strong enough…the only thing he’s not strong enough to do is stay away from her. That’s a lost cause.”

I know this is supposed to be a conversation about scince behind Twilight, but this was exactly why I wasn't entirely happy with the whole 'imprint to make better worriors' theory - in the end of the day, Jacob doesn't lust over little Renesme. He's happy if she's happy, and all he wants to do is to make her happy. So maybe imprinting happens to give the wolves some kind of purpose for their existance (I mean for them personally... besides the mission of destroying vampires...)

Now back to sience... I still hope that there will be more opinions on the points I made in my very long post on Sunday. But I wanted to introduce another querstion. Maybe I'm jumping too much ahead...but still... ---What do people think about how Edward's mind-reading works?

Here is my theory:

It is well known that there are certain sounds which are not picked up/processed by a human ear, but some animals can pick them up, etc. Lets suppose that human thought activity in the brain produces some kind of waves, which vibrate the particles in the air and that way travel through space. So, maybe, Edward's brain has evolved/developed in such a way that it can process these vibrations, interpret them and present the information in his head in this manner?

You are right about Bella. She vomited up the blood because she just drank it. However, her ribs were fractured as teh baby tried to break free of the womb. My thought is that the baby was pushing up on the abdominal cavity and it compressed the stomach. Trust me, they do this as humans too!!

corona wrote:Can you imagine Jacob imprinting on Charlie? Assuming the imprinter is going to give the imprintee whatever it is they need the most, I guess Jacob would have to take over Bella's old chores...for LIFE! That would truly make shape-shifting a curse, with something like that looming over your head.

I honestly think there is a crack-fanfic (one done just for fun) on exactly this scenario. Wait, maybe is Seth and Charlie. *shudders*

As to some of the other points on imprinting, etc... I think we kind of just settled on "nice plot devise" as the scientific reason for it. Sometimes, that is all it is. However, I have heard some really excellent reasons on this and other sites...1) It is done with a female who will indeed procreate best with the male. Since the males live forever, age doesn't matter.2) it is done to keep the female (or male) safe. Wolves have horrid tempers, and can kill their mates in a rage (Sam and Emily). Imprinting keeps them from doing too much damage.3) The imprinting is an intensified form of animalistic imprinting in which an animal literally cannot leave its mate or pack. It keeps the family unit whole even in the midst of chaos.

On to Vampire sexual function:I love this one... SM actually answered this one a bit in one of her interviews. She said that every cell is frozen in its current state, even sperm (new and improved, and sparkly!). The female freezes in her cycle, and the male freezes with the living sperm still living. That part is a stretch, but I can accept it. However, if a male freezes, his ability to make new sperm should also freeze. Honestly, a human male only has about six weeks of fertility at best (given activity every other night or so) after they are snipped in a vasectomy. Thus, only a new, or virgin male vampire should be able to conceive a child, and that would end when those super sperm are used up. However, apparently, the function of making sperm is still intact. The reason it is unbelievable for me is because in that case, a female vampire should then also be able to ovulate.

Ina EssBe wrote:Last but not the least; I would like to get to the bottom of Renesme’s immunity to vampire venom, i.e. would she be immune or NOT immune to it? I personally believe that she would be immune to it because Edward is her father, in other words the vampire gene would make her immune to it and it wouldn’t kill her. But then, there’s this chromosome issue. She has 24 chromosomes, like Jacob. If he gets bitten, then he definitely dies. So this fact poses a counter argument: if Renesme is similar to Jacob, then the venom would be poisonous to her as well.

Though I really have no thoughts on the matter, I would like to note that even if Renseme is similar to Jacob, it does not neccesarily mean vampire vemon is 'poisonous to her as well'. You and I are similar but you may have allergies, deadly allergies in fact, that I do not. And I really do think that all shape-shifters or "werewolves" can be killed by vampire venom, but really what proof do we have that that is true? Unless Stephenie said just that in an interview, that could very well just be one of the numerous things that mythological creatures assume in the books. I am sure that a shape-shifter got bitten and died and therefore they, rightfully so, made sure to not get bitten because they assumed it kills them. But couldn't just that one werewolf been allergic to vampire venom? A person can eat a tiny morsal of peanut butter and sufficate due to allergic reaction, where as I can eat tubs and tubs of the stuff and the only thing I would encounter is a stomach ache, ha ha. I just want to put out there that often in the books the characters are wrong, and we should not just take their word for it. I personally do believe that all the shape-shifters are allergic to vampire venom, but I also know that it is possible some of them would survive a bite, and take that into consideration when pondering the matter.

The books are difficult to try and work out, after all, it doesn't always fit together. But it is still fun to try to get it to

I don't think the venom would be poisonous to Renesme, but I think she might possibly turn into a full-on vampire if she ever did encounter it. I think her half-human self would alter. Isn't that what they were thinking in Breaking Dawn anyway? They thought if the aging-process did not slow down they might change her into a vampire? Or did they say it might kill her? I have horrible recall. I can never remember.

Openhome wrote:On to Vampire sexual function:I love this one... SM actually answered this one a bit in one of her interviews. She said that every cell is frozen in its current state, even sperm (new and improved, and sparkly!). The female freezes in her cycle, and the male freezes with the living sperm still living. That part is a stretch, but I can accept it. However, if a male freezes, his ability to make new sperm should also freeze. Honestly, a human male only has about six weeks of fertility at best (given activity every other night or so) after they are snipped in a vasectomy. Thus, only a new, or virgin male vampire should be able to conceive a child, and that would end when those super sperm are used up. However, apparently, the function of making sperm is still intact. The reason it is unbelievable for me is because in that case, a female vampire should then also be able to ovulate.

That is a very good point. Given that women are born with a supply of eggs and do not continue to make them over the lifetime and that there are only a small amount (in comparison to a man's fertility age range) of years which the eggs are viable, it should actually be the other way around if the cells are "frozen" at the time of change. I may be reading this wrong though...or being too "human" in my perception of this part of the vampire science...but it would seem that either both would be able to procreate or neither would if this were the case. Just my thoughts...I'd like to get back to another of the topics posted previously, but I have to get some sleep.